President Dr Lazarus McCarthy Chakwera has commended Vice-President Dr Saulos Klaus Chilima and the Public Sector Systems Review Taskforce for producing a recommendation report before the 90-day deadline.

Presidential Press Secretary Brian Banda said through a media release that the President received the Report at Kamuzu Palace in Lilongwe on 21^st May 2021.

“President Chakwera applauded the Vice-President and his team for producing an excellent report before the 90-day deadline the President had set back in February.

“The President also committed to study the full report and use it to give further direction on engaging the public and other stakeholders in the actions outlined in the report’s implementation plan,” reads the media release published after the presentation ceremony.

Banda said the President had delegated to the Vice-President to form and lead the Public Sector Review Systems Taskforce to review the three Government systems of Allowances, Procurement and Contracts, and to submit to him recommendations of changes to the Conditions of Service and Structure of the Public Service to make it more efficient.

The gender balanced Taskforce had 14 members, namely, Prof. Ronald Mangani, Prof. Nyovani Madise, Prof. Ngeyi Kanyongolo, Prof. Wiseman Chijere Chirwa, Dr. Aubrey Mvula, Dr. Henry Chingaipe, Mr. Steve Matenje SC, Mr. Waki Mushani, Mr. John Suzi Banda, Rev. Elsie Tembo, Ms. Tione Chilambe, Mrs. Zunzo Mitole, Ms. Nwazi Mnthambala, and former Ambassador Hawa Ndilowe.

It held its first meeting on Thursday, 25^th February, 2021 and agreed on the modus operandi including an action plan with clear timelines.

The Taskforce was supported by a team of technocrats within the civil service from the Office of the President and Cabinet, the Public Sector Reforms, the Ministry of Justice, and the Ministry of Finance, among others.

Background to the formation of the Taskforce

Dr Chakwera delegated the Vice-President to form and lead the Taskforce on 14 February, 2020 during his weekly National Address on the War on Covid-19 in which the President bemoaned lack of accountability and abuse of funds meant for the fight against the pandemic.

“We all know that the rot we have all expressed outrage about goes deeper than Covid-19 funds. If we are going to root out the problem of waste, abuse, and theft of public resources, we must admit that these are behaviours that have poisoned our values as a nation and have corroded our entire government system,” Dr Chakwera said.

He further said over the past 27 years, the government system has been rigged with bad or old laws, procedures, policies, and contracts that are cleverly designed to not only facilitate waste, abuse, and theft, but to also protect those who engage in the acts from being fired or prosecuted.

“The three government systems through which this behaviour is perpetuated are the system of allowances, the system of procurement, and the system of civil servant’s employment contracts. These three systems are used by system insiders to loot with impunity,” the President said.

To this effect, Dr Chakwera said it is the whole system that is corrupt and therefore the need to clean it up as a whole.

“We must conduct a comprehensive review and overhaul of the three government systems of allowances, of procurement, and of employment contracts. That is the public sector reform that this country needs most urgently,” he said.

Dr Chakwera further said the recommendations must include any legislative changes that must be made in the Republican laws at one of the sittings of Parliament this year.

“Our laws must protect the interests and resources of the public, not the rubble of public servants who use broken systems to loot and use bad laws and contracts to keep their jobs in the system and keep looting.”

He said the recommendations must also include a restructuring of the civil service to be more efficient and of civil servants’ conditions of service so that the good people in the system are well supported and not able to use poor pay as an excuse for wasting, abusing, and stealing public resources.

“This systemic review and overhaul will be resisted by so many who are benefiting from the looting, including greedy politicians from all our political parties, greedy businesses from the private sector, and greedy civil servants they partner with inside the machinery.

“But it is a battle they will not win. They will not win because you, the Malawian people, put me here to bring this kind of radical change, and whether anyone likes it or not, change has come,” Dr Chakwera said.